MIIS Offers New Avenue to Admission with Modified Language Requirement for Prospective Students

Students will benefit from expanded access thanks to added flexibility in the language requirement.

October 26, 2010 - 12:00am

Throughout its history, the Monterey Institute of International Studies has sought to attract the highest caliber of well-qualified, internationally-oriented students. As the Institute’s programs in areas such as international business and international environmental policy have expanded in recent years, a significant number of students who are highly qualified in every other respect to attend MIIS have been rejected because they are unable to meet the language proficiency requirement.

In an effort to address this issue while maintaining its strong commitment to language proficiency and content-based language instruction, the Institute today announced a pilot program that will provisionally admit certain well-qualified incoming students who have not had previous language training and/or have not reached the 300 level required for advanced language study. Admission of these students would be conditional on their commitment to attend either Middlebury Summer Language Schools or Monterey’s Summer Intensive Language Program during the summer prior to their initial enrollment. Upon successful completion of their summer language courses, they would be permitted to begin their graduate coursework in Monterey.

For fall 2011, this pilot program will be open only to students studying Spanish or Arabic. If the pilot program is successful, the Institute may expand it in the future to students studying other languages. Students admitted under this modified requirement may also qualify for the recently-announced Betty and David Jones Language Scholarships.

1 Comment

During my tenure as Pres ('87-'98) we followed the policy of accepting students lacking language skills if they agreed to attend the summer language program. Depnding on their progress, we tailored their follow-on language instruction. This required some to take on an overload; but it worked out OK. One of my two best presidents of the student council already had good French; but he wanted to become proficient in Mandarin as his qualifying language. He started from scratch and ended up in Taiwan for additional language study after completing all his other degree requirements. We should be able to be flexible enough to accommodate such case.